Black Americans Have Had Too Little Life Insurance for Decades. Here's How One Agent Is Fighting That
When America talks about race and money, life insurance doesn't get as much attention as topics like wages or mortgages. But there are disparities in the way the insurance industry has served Black Americans too. Atlanta life insurance agent Ebony Ruffin, whose agency specializes in helping Black families build wealth, has seen these first hand.
“Black families are definitely buying life insurance now,” she says, as the Black middle class expands and the industry has gradually begun paying attention to them. But, she adds, the community remains “underinsured as a whole.”
Data bears out Ruffin’s observations. For example, Black respondents to a 2020 survey by Haven Life were actually a little more likely than whites to have life insurance coverage -- with 8 in 10 Black consumers saying they had it, compared with 7 in 10 white families.
But Black survey respondents carried a lot less coverage. Where the average death benefit for whites who had insurance was $150,000, Black consumers carried only $50,000 -- a third as much. Income disparities don't fully explain the gap either. Black respondents in the survey made $50,100 a year on average, only about $5,000 less than whites surveyed.
We spoke to Ruffin, founder of Ruffin Consulting Services, to hear what she thinks about how the life insurance industry is serving Black families.
